Rhode Island Flooring Contractor Insurance

Every flooring business in Rhode Island, whether it lays tile in a storefront or carpet in a triple-decker, registers with the Rhode Island Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board before it bids the job, and that registration is only as good as the insurance behind it: liability and workers’ compensation proof go in at registration and renewal, and letting the coverage lapse invalidates the certificate. Around that sits a state-run lead renovation license from the Rhode Island Department of Health, a state asbestos rule that names resilient floor covering, and a compulsory workers’ compensation law with no state fund.

So in this state an insurance problem is also a registration problem, which is why the sections below start with the board and come back to it in the workers’ compensation part. Each one quotes the statute or rule that supports it. For the policies themselves, begin at the flooring contractor insurance page and its branches for residential flooring, commercial flooring, carpet installation and tile and stone work.

Rhode Island contractor registration and the insurance proof that keeps it valid

A flooring business in Rhode Island registers with the state Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board before it offers, bids or does the work. The statute defines a contractor as anyone who, as an independent business, builds, alters, repairs or improves a structure, and it counts both commercial buildings and buildings with residences as structures, so floor installation on either needs a current certificate of registration.

Authority: R.I. Gen. Laws § 5-65-1(7), (19); § 5-65-3(a), (c), (p); § 5-65-7(a)–(c); § 5-65-24(a)

The duty is written in a single sentence, with no trade list attached to it:

“A person shall not undertake, offer to undertake, or submit a bid to do work as a contractor on a structure unless that person has a current, valid certificate of registration for all construction work issued by the board.”

Nothing in that sentence mentions floors. What brings a flooring crew in is the word structure, which the chapter defines broadly enough to take in nearly every building a flooring business enters:

““Structure” means (i) Any commercial building; or (ii) Any building containing one or more residences and their appurtenances.”

Rhode Island ties insurance to the registration itself: throughout the registration period the contractor keeps public liability and property damage insurance covering its work at the combined single limit quoted below, carries workers’ compensation insurance as the workers’ compensation law requires, and shows proof of both at registration and renewal; letting the insurance lapse invalidates the registration. Cities, towns and the state may not issue a building permit to an unregistered contractor. A contractor that does not regularly work on residential structures is excused from several of the chapter’s homeowner-facing duties, but not from registration.

Here is the insurance requirement as the legislature printed it, limit included:

“Throughout the period of registration, the contractor shall have in effect public liability and property damage insurance covering the work of that contractor that shall be subject to this chapter in not less than the following amount: five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) combined single limit, bodily injury and property damage.”

And here is what a lapse does to the registration:

“Failure to maintain insurance shall invalidate registration and may result in a fine to the registrant and/or suspension or revocation of the registration.”

Two more lines carry the requirement out to the job site. One ties registration to the building permit; the other asks the contractor to say, job by job, whether its insurance is in place:

“A city, town, or the state shall not issue a building permit to anyone required to be registered under this chapter who does not have a current, valid registration or valid license.”

“The contractor must stipulate whether or not all the proper insurances are in effect for each job contracted.”

Commercial-only shops sometimes assume a homeowner law has nothing to do with them. The chapter’s nonresidential section opens like this, and the sections it then lists do not include registration:

“… the provisions of the following sections of this chapter shall not apply to any contractor who does not regularly, in the course of his or her or its business as a contractor, engage in construction activities as contemplated under this chapter on residential structures”

A registration tied this closely to insurance calls for some routine office habits:

• Line up renewal dates. When the liability policy, the workers’ compensation policy and the registration renew in different months, put all three on one calendar so no gap opens between them.
• Keep a current certificate of insurance on hand for each renewal and each job, since the statute asks for proof at renewal and a statement about insurance on every job contracted.
• Treat a cancellation notice from any insurer as a registration emergency, not a billing matter.

What a liability limit pays for, and how completed floors are treated after you leave, is explained on the general liability page. Contract terms on larger commercial work are a subject for the commercial flooring contractor insurance page.

Rhode Island’s Lead Renovation Firm license and the baseboards around a floor job

EPA has authorized Rhode Island to regulate lead renovation through a state program. EPA lists Rhode Island among the states authorized to operate their own renovation, repair and painting (RRP) programs, and under the Department of Health’s rule a flooring company, including a sole proprietorship or subcontractor, is licensed by the Department as a Lead Renovation Firm before it offers or performs that work in Rhode Island.

Authority: 216-RICR-50-15-11 § 11.5(A)–(C); 216-RICR-50-15-3 § 3.1(B), § 3.3(A)(59), § 3.5.6(D); 40 CFR Part 745, Subpart E

Rhode Island appears on EPA’s own list of authorized programs:

“EPA administers the RRP Program in most Tribes, states and territories, but has authorized the following to operate their own programs: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe-Boise Forte (Nette Lake).”

The licensing line in the Department’s rule leaves no room for a small-shop exception:

“Organizations, including sole proprietorships and subcontractors, and self-employed individuals shall be licensed by the Department as a Lead Renovation Firm in order to offer or perform renovation, repair, and painting (RRP) or lead hazard control (LHC) work in Rhode Island.”

“A certified Lead Renovator shall only perform RRP or LHC work in Rhode Island under the authority of a Lead Renovation Firm licensed by the Department.”

The certification follows the firm. A renovator who holds a personal certificate still works under some licensed firm’s authority, so a crew that subcontracts trim removal should know whose license the job runs under.

When a flooring job disturbs painted surfaces in older housing or a child-occupied facility, such as removing painted baseboards, shoe molding, thresholds or door casings, the firm holds a Department of Health Lead Renovation Firm license, a certified Lead Renovator works only under that firm and supervises each project, and the rule’s work practices apply, with the building-age threshold quoted below as printed. Owners of regulated facilities and target housing must hire a licensed Lead Renovation Firm or Lead Contractor for interior or partial demolition and the other listed activities.

The building year appears in the Department’s own definition:

“Since RRP projects can disturb lead-based paint in homes and buildings built before 1978, thus creating new lead hazards, individual renovators must be trained and certified, use lead-safe work practices, and firms must be licensed.”

The rule speaks to building owners as well as contractors, and one item on the owners’ list reads close to a floor replacement:

“Owners of regulated facilities and target housing shall employ a licensed Lead Renovation Firm or Lead Contractor for:”

“Interior or partial demolition activities (no de minimis)”

That gives the owner of an older rental a reason to ask for your firm license before signing. A short checklist for the walkthrough:

• Find out when the building went up, and whether it is housing or a facility where children spend time.
• List every painted piece that has to come off for the new floor: shoe molding, baseboard, thresholds, casings.
• Name the certified Lead Renovator who will supervise, and confirm the firm license is current.

Work in older occupied houses gets its own treatment on the residential flooring contractor insurance page, and how a liability policy responds to a lead claim is a question for the general liability page.

Resilient floor covering under Rhode Island’s asbestos rule

Rhode Island’s state asbestos program, run by the Department of Health, reaches flooring removal once the floor covering is friable or is sanded, ground, cut or abraded. The rule names resilient floor covering, asbestos-containing floor tile and sheet vinyl, as a class of nonfriable material, makes it regulated material in those conditions, and requires a Department license for anyone who engages in an asbestos abatement project.

Authority: R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-24.5-2(1); § 23-24.5-12(a)–(c); 216-RICR-50-15-1 § 1.3(A)(7), (21), (67), (73), (75); § 1.7.1; § 1.14.2(C); § 1.17.1(A)

The statute sets the license requirement in broad terms:

“No person or entity shall undertake an asbestos abatement project or dispose of friable asbestos materials in or from any building or demolition of any portion of a structure containing friable asbestos or asbestiform material unless the director has licensed that person or entity as qualified for those purposes.”

The Department’s rule then names flooring outright. It starts from a category of material that is not friable when intact:

“"Category I nonfriable asbestos containing material" means any ACM in the form of packings, gaskets, resilient floor covering …”

“"Resilient floor covering" means Asbestos containing floor tile, including … vinyl floor tile, and sheet vinyl floor covering containing more than one (1%) percent asbestos”

Intact is the condition that matters. The rule’s definition of regulated material pulls that same category in under two circumstances, and both describe things that happen on a tear-out:

“Category I nonfriable ACM that has become friable;”

“Category I nonfriable ACM that will be or has been subjected to sanding, grinding, cutting, or abrading;”

Removing asbestos-containing floor tile, sheet flooring or mastic that has become friable, or that the job will sand, grind, cut or abrade, is regulated work: the contractor holds a Department of Health asbestos license, the project runs under an abatement plan the Department approves unless it is a spot repair as the rule defines it, and the rule’s work practices apply, with their own provision for floors being abated of resilient floor coverings and associated mastics. A building or demolition permit involving asbestos abatement is issued only with the approved plan and the contractor’s license. Federal emission and worker-safety rules apply alongside the state rule.

Abatement in Rhode Island runs on paper filed before the work starts. The plan requirement reads:

“All asbestos abatement projects conducted at any facility, except for spot repairs as defined in this Part, must be conducted in accordance with an Asbestos Abatement (Management) Plan which has been submitted by the building owner and approved by the Department.”

“Notwithstanding any other law or regulation, no building permit or demolition permit involving asbestos abatement shall be issued by any municipal or state official unless the application for the permit includes a certified copy of an approved abatement plan and a certified copy of the license of the asbestos contractor who shall undertake the work.”

Floors get one line of their own in the work practices. It excuses floors being abated of resilient coverings and their mastics from a single sheeting requirement, the one its attribution names, and nothing more:

“Floors being abated of resilient floor coverings and associated mastics/adhesives shall be exempt from this requirement.”

Read it narrowly. It does not take a floor out of the license, the plan or the other work practices. How the Department reads its rule on a particular floor is for the Rhode Island Department of Health to say.

A crew stays clear of the friability line with a few practical steps:

• Ask for test results on old tile, sheet goods and black mastic before you price the removal.
• Plan on no sanding, grinding, cutting or abrading of a suspect floor by your own crew; those are the words that bring it under the rule.
• When the tile is already crumbling, stop and hand the floor to a licensed asbestos contractor before your installation begins.

Liability for tear-out and for finished work after the owner moves back in is discussed on the general liability page; demolition of old tile floors has its own angle on the tile and stone page.

Rhode Island workers’ compensation for flooring crews, and the registration link

Every person, firm and private corporation that regularly employs employees falls under Rhode Island’s workers’ compensation law, and each such employer must secure the compensation by insuring with a stock or mutual company authorized in the state or by qualifying with the Director of Labor and Training to self-insure. A contractor registered with the Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board must also carry workers’ compensation insurance as that law requires.

Authority: R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-29-6; § 28-29-2(4)(iv); § 28-36-1(a); § 28-36-15(a); § 5-65-7(b); Public Laws ch. 410 (Workers’ Compensation Insurance Fund act) § 3, § 15

The law decides who counts as an employer before it says anything about insurance:

“Every person, firm, and private corporation, including any public service corporation, including the state, that regularly employs employees in the same business or in or about the same establishment under any contract of hire, express or implied, and a city or town in this state that votes to accept the provisions of those chapters in the manner provided shall constitute an employer subject to the provisions of chapters 29 — 38 of this title.”

Once a business is an employer, the duty and the usual way of meeting it follow:

“Every employer subject to or who or that has elected to become subject to chapters 29 — 38 of this title as provided in § 28-29-8 shall secure in one of the following ways the compensation for which the employer is or may become liable under those chapters:”

“By insuring and keeping insured against liability to pay the compensation in any stock or mutual company, or association, authorized and qualified to do business in this state and to take those risks in this state;”

With employees, a Rhode Island flooring contractor buys a workers’ compensation policy from an authorized insurer or self-insures with the Director’s approval, and proves its insurance when it registers or renews with the contractors’ board. The law’s definition of employee leaves out a sole proprietor and an independent contractor. An employer that knowingly fails to secure compensation commits a felony, and the managers or partners of a company or partnership that fails can be held liable themselves. A statute-created insurer exists by law to give every employer in the state the opportunity to obtain coverage; it is a domestic mutual insurance company, not a state fund.

The exclusion that matters to small shops and to the installers they hire is this one:

“The term “employee” also does not include a sole proprietor, independent contractor, or a person whose employment is of a casual nature, and who is employed other than for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business”

The penalty side is short and blunt, and the registration chapter repeats the coverage requirement from its own end:

“Any employer required to secure the payment of compensation under chapters 29 — 38 of this title who or that knowingly fails to secure that compensation shall be guilty of a felony”

“In addition, all contractors shall have in effect workers’ compensation insurance as required under chapter 29 of title 28.”

Put together, a gap in workers’ compensation can cost a Rhode Island flooring business twice: once under the workers’ compensation law and once at the contractors’ board. Ask every installer you bring in whether they work alone or employ a crew, and keep their certificate or registration on file before they start. How payroll and outside labor are weighed when a policy is written is covered on the workers’ compensation page.

Who administers Rhode Island’s rules for flooring businesses

Insurance in Rhode Island is regulated by the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation; that link and the ones below go to the statute or rule that establishes each body, since those are the pages we could verify directly. Our own license, and any agent’s, can be checked on NIPR.com.

The other bodies a flooring business deals with, each with the role the record verified:

• Rhode Island Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board: registers contractors that work on commercial and residential structures, checks their liability and workers’ compensation insurance at registration and renewal, and hears complaints
• Rhode Island Department of Health: licenses Lead Renovation Firms and certifies Lead Renovators under the EPA-authorized state renovation program
• Rhode Island Department of Health: licenses asbestos contractors, supervisors and workers, approves asbestos abatement plans and enforces the state asbestos rule
• Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training: its director approves self-insurance and receives proof of employers’ financial ability under the workers’ compensation law

One department, the Rhode Island Department of Health, runs both the lead and the asbestos programs, under separate rules. A job with painted trim and old tile on it can raise both questions with the same department.

Rhode Island’s single metropolitan area

The U.S. Census Bureau’s list has one metropolitan area carrying Rhode Island’s name. Its principal cities are in the state and it takes in every Rhode Island county, so one card covers the whole state. It also crosses into a neighboring state, and the rules on this page stop at the Rhode Island line.

Rhode Island flooring work and the coverage page for each line

• For the policy whose limit the registration statute sets, plus tear-out and completed floors, see general liability.
• Who counts as your employee, and what covering them involves, is on the workers’ compensation page.
• Sanders, saws, tile cutters and material in the van: inland marine coverage for contractors’ tools and equipment.

Claims on a carpet job rarely look like claims on a tile job, which is why the carpet installation and tile and stone pages are separate. When you want the Rhode Island pieces in one program, a quote request is where that starts.

What the state sets

Where we discuss it

Contractor license A state license or registration can reach this work

→

General Liability

Lead-safe renovation The state runs its own lead-safe program

→

Residential Flooring Contractor Insurance

Asbestos flooring and mastic A state program reaches flooring removal

→

General Liability

Workers’ compensation Bought in the open market

→

Workers Compensation

A panel for Rhode Island in rows. Contractor license: a state license or registration can reach this work. It connects to the General Liability page. Lead-safe renovation: the state runs its own lead-safe program. It connects to the Residential Flooring Contractor Insurance page. Asbestos flooring and mastic: a state program reaches flooring removal. It connects to the General Liability page. Workers’ compensation: bought in the open market. It connects to the Workers Compensation page. Each row pairs a state rule with the page on this site that discusses it. No figures are shown.